YOUR MAMA’S NOTES: A late-night covert communiqué from real estate yenta Yolanda Yakketyyak informs us that showbiz scion, fashion entrepreneur and reality television denizen Nicole Richie and much-tatted musician Joel Madden have surreptitiously upgraded their residential circumstances with the off-market acquisition of a new residence in a swank, privately patrolled Beverly Hills enclave that property records show traded hands late last month for $6.7 million. (Fun Fact: throughout much of the 1990s, the property was owned by Jack Nicholson.)

The deal went down on the down low, hence Your Mama didn’t turn up any digital listings that would confirm some of the specifics of the property. Suffice to say, then, that the L.A. County Tax Man’s records (and other online resources) show the angled abode was originally built in the late 1950s, sits on an irregularly shaped 0.57-acre parcel and measures in at 5,515 square feet with four bedrooms, four bathrooms and three fireplaces plus an attached two-car garage, a backyard swimming pool and a sport court.

More Dirt

The Richie-Maddens’ new house sits in an especially star-studded pocket of the Beverly Hills Post Office where some of the other high-profile homeowners in the ‘hood include Ziggy Marley; Guy Oseary; Nicole Kidman and Keith Urban; Ashton Kutcher and Mila Kunis — they snatched up their place last year in an off-market deal for a tetch over 10 million from entertainment industry mover and shaker Tom Freston; Penelope Cruz and Javier Bardem — they paid $3.3 million for the former home of erstwhile couple Sara Gilbert and Allison Adler; and Jennifer Lawrence — whose home was previously owned by Jessica Simpson, Ellen DeGeneres and Paul Hogan. As avid and well-schooled celebrity real estate watchers already know, just down the street a bit from the Richie-Maddens new digs is the compound-like estate Cameron Diaz bought a few years ago from Candice Bergen, where she and Benji Madden — Joel’s twin brother — hitched their romantic and legal wagons a few months ago in front of a slew of other Hollywood hot shots like Jeffrey Katzenberg, Judd Apatow, Toni Colette and Nancy Juvonen.

Last year, in June 2014, the couple dumped Mister Madden’s former bachelor pad — a gated, 1930s Spanish Colonial in Glendale — for $1,837,000 and, as far as we can tell, they continue to own the 5,380-square-foot house in L.A.’s fabled Laurel Canyon that they bought in May 2009 for $1.912 million.